GOOD TO GREAT/COLLINS 42-49

43 You get the best people, you build them into the best managers in the industry, and you accept the fact that some of them will be recruited to become CEO's of other companies.

44 To be clear, the main point of this chapter is not just about assembling the right team--that's nothing new. The main point is to first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it. The second key point is the degree of sheer rigor needed in people decisions in order to take a company from gtg.

45 "I don't know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great."

48 I, define my job as having the freedom to do what seems to me to be in the best interest of the company at any time.

49 We found no systematic pattern linking executive compensation to the process of going from good to great. The evidence simply does not support the idea that the specific structure of executive compensation acts as a key lever in taking a company from gtg.

The only significant difference we found was that the gtg executives received slightly less total cash compensation ten years after the transition than their counterparts at the still-mediocre comparison companies.